Uplay, Ubisoft's middleware platform that became a full-fledged digital distribution platform a little over a year ago, will be rolled into its PlayStation 4 and Xbox One releases. Ubisoft announced that Uplay will be available on all the titles in Ubisoft's next-generation lineup, including Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, The Crew, The Division, Watch Dogs, and the recently announced games Child of Light, Valiant Hearts, and Trials Fusion.

Ubisoft claims that users will benefit from Uplay services, features, and rewards rolled into its games from one central account. The system will likely function like it does on current generation systems; Uplay is a menu option in Ubisoft titles that can be loaded up to show a feed of social events, what your friends have accomplished in the games you are playing and whatever special "Upoints" you and your friends have been awarded. Upoints are spent on various perks including special unlockable goodies within games.

Critics of Uplay are likely worried that this second layer within next-generation systems simply gets in the way of playing the game. Other concerns are related to the software being used as a DRM layer. Finally there is a concern that Ubisoft might use Uplay as a way to deal with used games purchases. The whole used games part of the equation is speculation, but both Sony and Microsoft have said that they would leave such things in the hands of publishers. Some publishers like EA have smartened up about using things like "online passes" to squeeze a few extra bucks from consumers who buy used...

We will have more on this subject as additional information becomes available.

Finally, Ubisoft announced that Uplay client update 4.0 would be rolled out in October for PC. The client will add a download manager and more social features.

If they fix the connection issues, and account problems (people are ending up with 2 or more accounts across platforms, and Ubi has NO way to merge the accounts or disconnect titles from these accounts)

Than I could get into UPlay, it REWARDS the player in various ways for doing things in the games. Unlike Trophies and Achievements on other systems, that are completely pointless trash that incite people to play like idiots and a-holes just to unlock things.

"Critics of Uplay are likely worried that this second layer within next-generation systems simply gets in the way of playing the game."

Consider me teh criticz in this regard. Far Cry 3 (Xbox360) would often stall when connecting to Uplay and take forever to load for me. It got to the stage where I had to disconnect from Live when loading the game.

Finally console gamers can also share in all the things that make Ubisoft shitty. I like plenty of their games but spent years not buying them thanks to their always online crap and now I am very hesitant thanks to their clunky Uplay nonsense.